In the following few thousand years vitis vinifera spread all over the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Europe. In the course of this vast dispersal in space and time, genetic variation would inevitably occur through natural selection. Human intervention in this process would have accelerated it, so that in local areas certain variants came to be valued more than others, and hence the eventual development of the hundreds, maybe thousands of region-specific varieties of vitis vinifera we are now blessed with.
Most of the varieties grown in New Zealand today originated in France. Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley and Bordeaux; Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Burgundy and Champagne; Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc from Bordeaux; Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer from Alsace and Germany; Syrah (Shiraz) from the Rhone Valley. As time goes on the range of varieties and countries of origin is extending – Sangiovese and Montepulciano from Italy for example.
Being freed from many of Europe’s restrictive rules and regulations about what can be grown where has ensured a pioneering experimentation in New Zealand, which has demonstrated the great versatility of vitis vinifera varieties and undone many myths in the process. For example the most widely planted variety in the warm, moist, windy, maritime-influenced climate of Matakana is pinot gris, and general opinion is that it does rather well here. Yet this variety originated in the cool, dry, continental climate of Eastern France.
Despite the fact that the varieties we work with have been transplanted into thoroughly foreign soils and climates, the consensus seems to be that New Zealand wines have a uniqueness in their fresh, clean fruitiness which gives them a universal appeal, recognisable but also quite different from their illustrious European ancestors.
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( 3 / 520 )These days there is considerable public concern about environmental damage from careless farming practices, and awareness of the need to farm more sustainably. So it is understandable that people feel concerned when they see sprays being used in vineyards.
Most vineyard spraying involves use of products which are relatively benign in the environment, indeed many are acceptable for organic farming regimes. Most protect vines against fungal diseases – black spot, downy mildew, powdery mildew, and various forms of bunch rot. A whole new range of horticultural sprays has been developed in recent years involving use of natural control agents, generally bacteria or other fungi, which either attack the harmful fungi or move into their ecological niche and prevent them from developing.
All chemical sprays are subject to MRLs – Maximum Residue Limits, which are readily measurable in wine and legally enforceable. MRLs restrict the amount of such sprays winegrowers can use, and the times they can use them. For instance, they can not be used within a certain number of days before harvest.
In addition, New Zealand Winegrowers, the statutory industry body which all winegrowers must belong to, has in recent years established an organisation called Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand. Winegrowers are not obliged to belong to this body but currently 60 per cent of New Zealand’s vineyard area belongs and is accredited to SWNZ.
SWNZ was developed to provide a “best practise” model of environmental care in the vineyard, to promote responsible behaviour in terms of the well-being of staff, neighbours and the community, and to guarantee better quality assurance from vineyard to bottle. SWNZ places stringent restrictions on the use of agrichemicals and addresses issues such as soil health and water quality. Members are audited on their compliance, and failure to comply results in loss of accreditation.
Even without restrictions and regulations winegrowers know that in order to compete in a crowded world wine market we all need to manage our vineyards as closely as we can to New Zealand Winegrowers’ motto “the riches of a clean green land”.
Wine and the economy
The nationwide grape harvest this year was an all time record. At 205,000 tonnes, it was 11 percent higher than the previous biggest vintage in 2006 and almost four times the size of 10 years earlier. This indicates both that the New Zealand industry is very young and that it has been very successful in its short life. It is difficult to think of another industry in recent times which has gone from very modest beginnings to such burgeoning success so quickly.
The phenomenal growth has, however, had its problems and anxieties. At the millennium, the Wine Institute of NZ was concerned about how all of this wine was going to be sold. They were anxious to convey the message that new vineyard plantings should slow down. There was no way New Zealanders could drink it all and they could see no possibility of an export industry developing in such a short time to soak up the ever-increasing surplus.
How wrong they were! In 2000, NZ exported around 19 million litres of wine, for $169m, but by 2006 this had grown to 58 million litres and $512m. A more than three-fold increase in just six years and we have been able to maintain premium prices with it. Back in 2000, NZ wine fetched a higher average price per bottle in the UK than wine from any other country and that remains the case today. The demand for our wine is such that even with the record 2007 harvest, there are likely to be some supply difficulties in the short term.
To put the importance of wine to the NZ economy into context, wine sales are now second only in value to sheepmeats among NZ’s primary product exports to the UK, and that country takes less than one third of all our wine exports.
Fundraising quiz
On another subject altogether, I would like to put in a plug for a charity event to be held at Ascension Vineyard on Saturday, August 11. This is a “Wine Options” quiz where you get to taste a range of wines and are then given a series of options to help you identify them. There is a great prize for the winning team of four and proceeds will go to Warkworth Primary School. To find out more about this fun event and to enter your team, contact Tracey at 422 2488 or email mardale@xtra.co.nz.
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( 3 / 523 )Matakana grapegrowers and winemakers have been preoccupied over the past eight weeks or so with vintage, which is the most intensely active and demanding part of the winegrowing year.
Grape varieties ripen at slightly different times and in Matakana, this occurs between late March and late April. The decision as to when to pick is determined initially by taste and examination of the berry pips and bunch stems, backed up by measurements of sugar and acid levels in the fruit. These are based on juice analysis from a randomly selected sample of berries. The acid in grapes drops as sugar rises, and the rate of each is determined by the weather. Because we want to avoid too much or too little of either, the winegrower’s skill is in deciding exactly when both are optimal.
When this occurs the grape picker’s skill comes into play. Many local people have worked at grape picking for some years now, so there is a pool of experienced grape pickers in the district. Picking is not as simple as it may seem – selecting the right bunches and discarding those which are either “second set” (unripe), or have signs of rot, is not always obvious and takes skill and judgement. The bunches are picked into small bins then transported to the winery.
The processing procedure depends upon whether the grapes are white or red. The colour in red wine comes entirely from grape skins, which along with the pips contribute flavour and the tannins. These are essential to give red wine its structure and stability so the red juice, pulp, pips and skins are all kept together. White wine is a more delicate beverage, so skins, pips and pulp are discarded and only the juice is fermented.
At this point, the winery workers really get going. Bunches are fed into a de-stemmer/crusher, a machine which removes the stems then crushes the berries. This produces a slurry of juice, skins, pips and pulp, called “must”. Red must is pumped directly into a large open-topped fermenting tank. White grapes are also de-stemmed and crushed, but white must is then pumped into the wine press. This allows the “free run” juice to drain, then squeezes the skins and pulp to extract the remaining juice.
The must can then be inoculated with yeast. Put simply, fermentation is the consumption of grape sugar by yeast, the main product of which is alcohol. During fermentation the winery workers need to be continuously monitoring the progress of the ferments in a range of ways, adding yeast nutrient if necessary, adjusting refrigeration temperature on white wine tanks so the must stays relatively cool, and regularly “plunging” or “pumping over” the red tanks to keep the raised cap of skins moist and healthy, and to assist colour extraction from the skins.
This means hard and unrelenting physical work, right through the night for the three to five days which it typically takes a red must to complete fermentation, and for very long hours during the remaining weeks of the vintage period. There is no family or social life for the winery worker at this time of year – cellar hands are wedded to their ferments!
None of this acknowledges the biochemical magic which happens when grape juice becomes wine – but maybe the explanation of such magic is best left to Plato, who said around 2400 years ago: Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine has ever been granted by the Gods to man. Amen to that.
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( 3 / 523 )North Rodney has experienced huge change in recent years. Some of this has been driven by the emergence of the wine industry, which has been partly responsible for bringing more visitors to the district. Visitors come from far and wide: a survey undertaken at Ransom Wines during February this year indicated that one third of our visitors were from overseas.
We know there may be some ambivalence amongst residents about the desirability of tourists flooding the area, and this is understandable. But there is no doubting the contribution they make to the economic well-being of North Rodney.
Consider the impact of the wine industry on the local economy; a Matakana Winegrowers Inc. survey in mid-2006 indicated there are more than 100 full-time-equivalent jobs in the local wine industry. But in addition to employment opportunities, visitors who come to sample the local wines spend a good deal of money on other products and services - food, activities, accommodation etc.
So it is clear people are coming to the Matakana region because of the reputation of the wines – just as they visit Burgundy, Bordeaux, and the Barossa Valley to try the local wines. And when people visit those regions they are seeking a local experience – local stories and local wines. When you go to Burgundy you don’t expect to be offered wine from Bordeaux.
We are starting to see in Matakana some of the features of established wine regions around the world. For example, we now have a fine wine centre in Matakana Village, “The Vintry”, where you can taste all the Matakana wines; Heron’s Flight performs an educational role with informal talks and a printed guide to the wine region; and many of the excellent local accommodation establishments are opting to provide local wines and regale their guests with local wine lore.
These are signs of a region starting to take pride in its unfolding wine heritage and to acknowledge the economic importance of its wine industry. Meantime, by the time you read this we will all be well into the wonderful but crazy annual event called vintage……
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( 3.1 / 497 )The wine business is highly competitive, both in New Zealand and around the world. We hear talk of “wine lakes” in the big European wine producing countries, and thousands of tonnes of grapes have been left on the vines in Australia in recent years because there is no market for them.
Wine lakes and unpicked grapes are in part symptoms of more discerning wine drinkers and a declining global demand for cheap wine. We have avoided this problem in New Zealand by producing wines at the premium end of the market, but this does not prevent the importation of European and Australian wines. This puts pressure on New Zealand producers, because for a variety of reasons – cool climate growing conditions, weather vagaries, high labour costs, absence of government agricultural subsidies, and economies of scale, we are unable to produce wine cheaply.
The answer for New Zealand winegrowers has been to get into the export game ourselves. Between 1996 and 2006 the volume of wine exported increased from 11 to 58 million litres – more than 500% increase. During the same period, wine imports into New Zealand increased by about 70% - the rest of the world seems to want our wines much more than we want theirs!
As with other New Zealand regions, wine exports from Matakana have also increased enormously in recent years. Talk to any of the seven or eight local winegrowers who export and you will hear stories about how enthusiastically Matakana wines are received around the world. Matakana-grown Bordeaux-blend reds are being consumed in top-end restaurants in New York, London, and Sydney amongst other places, and our pinot gris and chardonnay wines are exported to a wide range of countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
The Antipodean and Providence have been exporting for the longest time, but Matakana Estate is by a substantial margin the largest producer and exporter of wine in Matakana. Other Matakana wineries currently exporting are Brick Bay Wines, Hawk’s Nest Orchard, Hyperion Wines, Ransom Wines and Takatu Vineyard.
Robin Ransom
robin@ransomwines.co.nz
Originally published in Mahurangi Matters, March 2007
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